VA - Internet of Value - Olinga Ta'eed

VA - Internet of Value - Maryam Taghiyeva

On the Potentiality of a [Mathematical] Model for Social Value

Haley Beer & Kélig Aujogue

Quantifying and discovering mathematical models has long been part of human understanding and progression. Whether it is applied to scientific, technological or social matters a mathematical model can help us to comprehend, predict, and compare important phenomenon, and their influences, in our environment.

“By curious skill they could number the stars and the sand, and measure the starry heavens, and track the courses of the planets. For with their understanding and wit, which Thou bestowedst on them, they search out these things; and much have they found out; and foretold, many years before… But they knew not the way, Thy Word, by Whom Thou madest these things which they number, and themselves who number, and the sense whereby they perceive what they number, and the understanding, out of which they number; or that of Thy wisdom there is no number.” - Saint Augustine

Typically, the use of mathematical models follows a pattern: it is developed within the sciences to describe natural phenomenon and/or laws and then diffused towards other applied subjects.  For instance, partial differential equations utilized for centuries in physics to describe continuous medium are now applied to understand financial values; as in the Black-Scholes equation being used to predict the price of European options. Similarly, the Fourier Transform, a mathematical tool discovered nearly 200 years ago that projects a continuous timeline of events into a series of frequencies, is now used in signal processing devices (vocal, optical…) around the world.

Justly, the influence of many mathematical models has expanded away from their original applications in sciences and one could legitimately wonder: Can we model and predict social values with such tools? Probably. If we are interested in modelling a social value such as happiness and make the assumption that it reacts as a fluid, we could use the Navier-Stokes equation. The advection in time or the rate of Happiness would then be described as the sum of external forces (e.g., relationships, satisfaction with job, personal resources, opportunities for expression, etc.) and the diffusivity of happiness.  We could then write in terms of mathematical formalism that:

where VHappiness is the value of Happiness at a given position in space and in time, Fexterior corresponds to the external constraints (positive or negative) influencing the happiness and v a “viscous” coefficient of happiness. This last term could thereby be interpreted as some capacity of the happiness holder to share or influence their environment.

However, as much as this model shines a different light on the notion of Happiness and is a good starting point, it is conceivably not fully satisfactory for modelling social values. Natural science models are founded in the belief that phenomenon exist 'out there' and are independent from humans; but, arguably social value such as happiness reside 'inside', or at the very least are interpreted individually interiorly, so somehow motions to be known in a different way.

By using a model to derive a figure for social value, whichever way we choose to define it using present mathematical models, we largely overlook the interior process of coming to know such value (whether that is the process of interpretation of an external social value or the nurturing of personal social value understanding and expression).

Just because I am capable of describing Happiness in a model does not necessarily translate into the generation of more (or less) Happiness for others or myself. That is, mathematical models as they are used today encourage us to ‘know’ something as external to us, to identify things in the physical realm, but not necessarily to understand what they mean for us as individual people, or how to change such things (e.g., how am I affected by knowing the phenomenon Happiness exists and what does it mean for how I conduct myself or my organization?). We may have developed models which help us predict Earthquakes and Solar Flares, but is there anything we can actually do to stop/transform them? No. Though, do we have some sway over our levels of happiness? By all means yes.

Likely for a veracious modelling of social value we will eventually need to come up with new 'models' that stretch our current conceptions of 'coming to know' something. That is, because the point is to lend ontological (or a part of reality) credence that in the past was not considered (at least not very much in institutional and organizational settings), we arguably need new epistemologies (ways of knowing that reality). While the natural science models might bring us a first way to measure for social value, and thereby discuss its potential and usefulness at organizational, institutional, national and international levels, due to its intersubjective nature, we think the way of measuring for social value should itself evolve to enable different kinds of knowing. Why only use models to predict and compare levels of Happiness when there is a seeming opportunity to personally foster, understand, and express it more meaningfully?

Atlas Coelestis – The Copernican System - 1660

In practice also, mathematically such equations as the Happiness one needs boundary conditions to be solved. These conditions are properties at the end of the studied domain that are not well defined in the known reality of social values. What are the limits or boundaries to social values anyway? And should there even be any placed? Besides, can we really limit the movement of social values to an advection/diffusion process? Maybe for some of them but it seems that there are insufficiencies for most social values.

Taking an example such as freedom, we have to admit that even if we could find some ground to justify the advection it would be harder to explain the diffusion. Certainly, freedom is something that is owned by its holder and sometimes can be given by its holder. These points highlight only the tip of the iceberg for the complexity of human relations and modelling social values. Perhaps the measuring rate in the world of social values can be approached through a different formalism such as Network Theory or Thermodynamics. Nonetheless, humans’ capacity to experience, generate, express and share social value is arguably one of the most under appreciated resources in our present use of mathematical models.

In other words, these existing mathematical models might help us bridge the initial gap between this so far much neglected interior realm of our universe and our obsession with objectivity since the Enlightenment, but once we become more comfortable talking about and ‘modelling’ social value, then we bet we can also come up with original ways of knowing, discussing, and/or generating it. However, in the meantime, using a host of mathematical models from the natural sciences to begin exploring how to integrate social value into economic and organizational discourse is helpful as it stimulates interest in and energies towards social value- and this is ultimately a first step towards discovering its potentiality!  

“Spirale” by Michelle Gouin

UK academics release algorithm measuring Personal Value in 60 seconds

Can Seratio change your life in 60 seconds?

Seratio, world leader in the measurement of non-financial  value, today launches their Personal Value (PV) campaign to measure the social impact of 1 million people for free. In less time than it takes to boil a kettle, you can now measure your PV at www.serat.io. Measuring Personal Value takes 60 seconds and consists of 6 online questions.

According to COO Karen Bryson, “Seratio’s Personal Value service is the only place where individuals can get an overall score on their unique contribution to societal welfare. Measuring Personal Value allows us to reflect on our choices and actions – and challenge ourselves to improve our personal score and watch it grow over time.”

Seratio is the licensing arm of the not-for-profit Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance (CCEG) based in the UK. Developed over 4 years and across 90 universities, Seratio's algorithms measure value at citizen, family, community, team, organisational, network, regional, national, global levels and even the value of our thoughts. Their disruptive Social Earnings Ratio® is "the most rapidly adopted metric in the world" (Vatican press) already supporting  two laws in the UK – the Social Value Act 2012 and Modern Slavery Act 2015 - and has measured $4 trillion of organisations internationally.

To support measuring Personal Value, Seratio has launched a crowdfunding campaign at Generosity.com . A percentage of funds raised will support the Tutu Foundation to continue its work on peace and reconciliation. The Tutu Foundation UK endorses the work of Seratio to measure Personal Value, recognising that "my humanity is tied to your humanity". Measuring PV allows people to express their humanity and start to understand the impact they have on others. 

Raisa Ambros

Editor Social Value & Intangibles Review

Raisa.ambros@cceg.org.uk

Mobile: +39 (3203) 551053

@RaisaAmbros

Growing Old Gracefully: Valuing Personal Care

By Peter Adams
Director, Avida Care

Most of us want to grow old gracefully, don’t we? However, despite our best efforts, this is by no means a certainty; in fact it is something of a lottery. Being careful and responsible in our own life is unfortunately no guarantee of a long life, let alone a graceful old age. Whilst there are many personal choices and actions we can take to help stave off what used to be called "decrepitude", sadly most of us will, sooner or later, become frailer and more dependent on others to perform functions we previously took for granted.

I should clarify that all I mean here by growing old gracefully is merely how we can grow old while maintaining a reasonable quality of life and standard of living for as long as possible. I suggest that for most of us this means being of sound enough mind and body, with enough money to be able to lead a largely self-determined, happy life, and leave something to our children.
But how can we continue to remain "graceful" in our older years, particularly when we need help coping and caring for ourselves? How can our hard-pressed care system help make this happen? This is surely one of the greatest challenges our society faces, because it will face each one of us sooner or later. We are living longer; can we live happily longer? This begs some very important questions of the care system, our funding of it, and indeed our very attitude to caring.

The current care system does indeed face massive pressures. It has been geared mostly to doing the basics to keep older people out of crisis, and less to promoting happiness and wellbeing, so there is a transformative expectation that the system needs to satisfy – extremely challenging in its own right. Moreover, the available funding for care has not kept up with both the fact that we are living longer and that the population is ageing. So budgets have been stretched thin; like a pastry chef with one lump of pastry left to roll a pastry lid to cover an ever growing pie, the lid is rolled ever thinner to the point of falling apart. Of course, factor in the austerity cuts to council budgets and the funding outlook becomes dramatically worse. To cap it all, to use a very inappropriate phrase, the prospects for hard-pressed families have hardly been helped by the Government’s recent decision to renege on bringing in the long-awaited cap on care fees.
So the system is at breaking point, with serious danger of collapse in the near future. So what can be done, now, to properly address this funding crisis? Well, one of the answers is certainly more money. Nice one Einstein you might reply, but hear me out, because making more money available, though vital, needs to be done in a totally new way. So whilst there is a good argument for re-prioritising current government expenditure budgets, such a solution, involving as it does robbing Peter to pay Paul, cannot be the long-term answer, even though there may be obvious, less-deserving candidates right now to "rob" from.
Moreover, making more money available is actually not the starting point, but an ending point, once the proper worth to society of care funding has been calculated. This requires a deeper, more fundamental approach based on values – specifically how we value care and caring, and our notion of real value, which is more than just monetary worth. Ultimately this approach forces us to reflect what real value society places on older people. This is important not just morally, but economically too, because any economist will tell you that investors search out value – or to put it another way – money follows the value. So, we have no hope of funding care properly as a social good if we do not first appreciate its true value.

So how do we put a true value on care and caring? Well we need to look at both economic value and social value. Let’s look at some figures.
For many of us the first steps along "reliance road" will be to receive support or care from immediate family or friends – and this army of "informal" (ie unpaid) carers actually delivers a huge amount of care. ONS data show that, between 1995 and 2010, the total amount of informal care delivered to adults increased by nearly 50% to over 7.5 billion hours per year! Around half of these care hours were for people aged 70 years or older. In 2011 the Valuing Carers report estimated that unpaid carers contributed the equivalent of well over £100 billion per year to the economy, and much of this "value" concerned personal care for older people. Yet this is not properly reflected in budgetary planning for the funding of care, which assumes this free service will continue ad infinitum – an unlikely scenario given that many carers are elderly and indeed frail themselves. Also does even this stupendous figure begin to adequately reflect the real value of these carers’ love, commitment and sacrifice to those they care for, let alone to society at large? So this social added value needs to be measured properly too.

Of course, informal care is just part of the picture – there is another army of professional care workers out there. As we become frailer, these paid care workers supplement, and sometimes replace altogether, our unpaid carers. Does the funding for paid care (or indeed the amount of money these care workers are paid) really reflect the true value of their contribution to those they care for, on behalf of the rest of us? Once again we need to recognise and measure the true social value of what they do, and add this into the funding mix. Only then can we hope to make, as a society, a properly informed decision as to how much money we should, and are willing to, put into care funding.
This more holistic, values-based approach to funding our care system for older people is urgently needed. Progress is starting to be made in the right direction. Organisations such as Carers UK and In-Control – with the latter’s conception of a transformed "public offer" based on the "real wealth" of individuals and communities – are making valuable contributions to this new values-based thinking. But there is much more to be done, and quickly. Far more emphasis must be placed on ground-up values measurement, combined with more focused, top-down values-based policy making.
Only when we recognise and measure the true value – both economic and social – of our older people and of caring properly for them, can we possibly hope to invest the right amount of money in funding a care system that is fit for an enlightened, 21st Century society; one in which more of us can grow old gracefully; one where we really can live happily for longer.

Female Perpetrators of Murder, Domestic Violence and Modern Slavery

By Professor Olinga Ta’eed

Director, Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance

Intuition tells us that these three subjects must be connected by sentiment if nothing else. Words such as rage, oppression, freedom are emotive expressions  which until recently could not be quantified and thus only qualitatively connected.  The latter makes for an interesting lecture, but frankly it’s hardly ground breaking. This made last weeks inaugural lecture by Dr Jarka Hrabetova, our newly appointed Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance all the more fascinating in her unique approach to these delicate subjects.

Her research sample consisted of all imprisoned women who had perpetrated murder in one particular prison ie half of all incarcerated women in the Czech Republic. The data detected the forms of murderous behaviour of women, the typology of murder by motivation, mapping the social situation of female convicts in prison, selected attitudes of homicide offenders including the analysis of family murders. The results indicate that most are intimate murders with the most common being partner homicide in conflict situations, long-term domestic violence and excessive alcohol consumption for both victim and perpetrator. The 100+ academic audience found comfort in her robust methodology which supported her conclusions but the real surprise was what she presented next. 

Building on the results of her sound but traditional research approach, Jarka has gone on to use Sentiment Analysis, a methodology stemming from the burgeoning Semantic Web 3.0, to analyse her data with a view to devise quantifiable metrics to define, and thereby forecast,  catastrophic events based on emotion – like murder. This is the stuff of the future and her work cannot be undervalued. My daughter, Tigris, has drawn out the analogy to Tom Cruise’s 2002 film ‘Minority Report’ where foreknowledge Is used to predict crime. This is powerful stuff.

Going even further, Jarka’s has extended her theory to applications in Domestic Violence, Honoured Based Violence and Modern Slavery. Using the Social Earnings Ratio in the context of ‘Personal Value’, she is defining trigger points to intimate murders, to DV and HBV in the context of criminology. And even further still, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 which is obtained Queen’s Royal Ascent in March 2015 in the UK will be enacted later this year. Companies with turnover of more than UK£36m will have to disclose whether they are making efforts to eliminate slavery in supply chains. Modern Slavery has principally two components – pay and oppression – and Jarka is working to define the latter benchmark whilst her colleague, Rani Kaur, works on the former. In this respect Jarka’s previous research work on Human Trafficking and her 12 year background in the police force has provided us with great insights. CCEG aims to provide the go-to metric behind the Modern Slavery Act 2015, just as we have become the leading provider of measurement under the Social Value Act 2012.

We are living in a time when how we feel about things can be quantified and becomes the new lexicon of intangible non-financial values. These modern tools such as S/E allow Jarka to seamlessly draw from her Prague work on female perpetrators of murder and apply it to the measurement of Ambition for the Arts Council in Corby, a middle-England town which is the focus of her most recent work. Who would have believed that would be possible?

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[The views and opinions expressed in this blogs by guests or members of the CCEG are those of the author, and not of the CCEG or the University of Northampton Business School]

Desistance - Resistance - Social Value and Redemption

Zarin Sharif 
Start-Up Entrepreneur and Ex-Offender

During the time my head was being burnt out by the council over me setting up a business and trying to work in partnership with them, the Job centre and Probation … I received an email from Olinga about the Social Value Portal.

My initial thought was eh! I read it and thought to myself this is for me. I called Olinga and we had a chat. I don’t think he could believe what he was hearing and we had a laugh about it. From there I thought I’d try to communicate with the council, putting the Social Value Act 2012 in where I can.

I put some representations together in my own words fighting my case to be treated on my own individual merits but the main thing being my social exclusion and my attempts to overcome it. And their obligations in regards to the Social Value Act. And to my amazement it worked and I got a further rent free period. Now I’m on it from every angle.

I like it when they try to dismiss me or palm me off on someone else. It might work with others but not me. Unfortunately. My will to stay out of prison, stop reoffending and lead a law abiding lifestyle is bigger than someone’s efforts trying to mug me off.  As I’m living this experience I can’t believe it’s actually happening. And what worries me is it solely directed at me or is everyone being treated like this? It’s a question nobody wants to answer that’s what makes it all suspect. It’s a horrible feeling.

This is my story. As an offender I achieved a BSc Honours Degree in Social Sciences with Sociology via the Open University. With a couple of years left I wrote a blog for Choice FM for their Peace on the Streets campaign. After my release Choice FM put me in touch with Foundation4Life and I helped them do a few workshops about Gang Culture.

Here’s a few more things I have got up to.  Given a talk at the Centre for Social Justice about my experiences and failings of the criminal justice system. Only ethnic minority drugs representative in the north of England for 18-24 months. Published recently in a Prison Reform Trust and Prison Education Trust consultation Through the Gateway. A Few consultations with Nihal on BBC Asian Network. Since my release I have been trying to engage with my local council’s BME Network and find a way with the local authorities on how I can help. I thought the education I had learnt while studying and experiencing day to day would be of some value. Especially living in a region with high unemployment and crime. Wrong!

My reasons for wanting to work with the BME was because I come from that background and over the years have seen the increase of crime committed from within that group, mainly Pakistani lads. From the off I could see this council guy had an attitude problem and that is where our conflict of interests and personalities started. Mine were and still are for good reasons, I don’t know about him.

Constant rejection and been spoken to like your nothing, isn’t nice, but I put up with it because I know this is what it’s like being an offender. Through the course of time I’ve ended up attending National Treatment Agency substance misuse forums around the northeast of England. Straight away I pointed out there are no ethnic minorities here and the point was picked up. I wasn’t liked there either because of my knowledge and the truth hurts these people when they hear it.

I was sat there amongst the people who used to lock me up and try to govern my life outside in society too and quickly realised how powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands my subject matter expertise I had was. And I become challenging and they couldn’t take it. During my time there I was the most consistent ethnic minority representative there always questioning why there is no BME.

I packed it in when my value to them was £20. And I voluntarily as an ex-offender travelled all around the northeast at a cost to me financially, but never mind my willingness to help, more than anything was it a valuable experience. I got nowhere here but I made a very good attempt to see what was out there. Thinking on my feet I just went for it trying to get on within the framework of the Criminal Justice System. I achieved quite a bit but ultimately I had to find a job. The more I tried I again realised I had too much knowledge but it was the wrong kind.  The truth.

All the time I was trying to make a move on the BME in a positive way because I’m seeing more and more people going to prison from my area and especially amongst the Asians for drugs. Getting nowhere all the time and clearly being discriminated against by prejudices. Every time I tried I’ve walked away wanting to give someone a proper kicking.

And that is how I had my first encounter with local council. My first contact was like a police interview but I knew I could not go to prison for speaking my mind. So we all went for it, them with the formalities of listening and disregarding what you are saying but I was dealing with real facts. Because I’ve been prosecuted quite a few times I know how to build a case and by using my knowledge I quickly got them on the back foot. The problems started after I presented my case and they tried to give the brush off. Quickly I was on the phone quizzing him about his reasons. What a load of crap and I told them not to patronise and lie to me I don’t like it but that didn’t seem to bother them. So as a man they have never encountered before, with my full on rage, I stood up to them and put them on their toes.

Lets go out into the community and gather the facts. And what is a joke as the Freedom of Information manager he tried to tell me the evidence I provided was not credible. When I said it would be good enough in front of a judge, he was wounded. I was on him like a rash telling what is credible evidence and he couldn’t deny it. I’m still waiting for him to reply to my email about it. He knew I was too much for him so he tried palming me off on to his boss and he tried the same. He got a more tailored response but ultimately they are in a corner because I’m dealing in the facts from a broad range of the community and they are relying on what they have been told and know to be a waste of tax payer’s money.

One thing I did notice throughout this experience was the similarities in their attitudes as to what I come across and other inmates too.  The way they think they can talk to you and get away with it. It’s the one thing I always question and nobody seems to answer. Is it me you talk to like this or is it everyone else too? Straight on from that I’ve got other targets to meet and that is me getting off this unemployment lark.

Multi agency. But the brains behind it are the Job Centre/DWP and NOMS (National Offender Management Service).  In situation like this it is easy to see why it’s just easier to offend or carry on reoffending. It’s the way the abuse of power by the system is bullying you into submission and the way it makes you feel.  Knowledge is power in this experience and I keep a record by sending emails and keeping my offender manager informed. All the time people think they can brush me off but is this happening to other people?

I’m always out and about and am quizzing people and they too are experiencing this. Is this for real? I’m going to give you another example. I’m currently starting a small business. Between Probation and the Job Centre they put me in touch with a local charity. Since the beginning of the year I’ve put together a model of a sustainable business using most of my skills and references supplied by some well known business men in the area. The support given to me by my family, friends, associates and others has been more than appreciated. The time had come last week for me to hand in and get the help needed to finish the business plan for consideration. I was excited, buzzing and all that.

Then the guy working for the charity went into this rant about this personal grievance at work and that I should not submit my business plan through his works but somewhere else. My phone went off and it was one of the local colleges wanting to work with me on a project to help enhance the employment chances of students. I’m trying to tell him I need to put this in the plan too but somehow he’s on the phone to a secretary at work trying to somehow get some sort of message across to me. I walked off.

And again find myself in another complaint process asking is it me or everyone else too. Now I’ve got the Job Centre and Probation trying to distance themselves from this latest scenario. Leading me down the garden path and clearly in some cases being discriminatory because of my past. But their biggest fear my knowledge about my civil rights.

And again I have to do business with the council and they have already got their own perceptions about me. But they are not viewing me for my individual merits for individual situations. They have already painted a picture of me. But when I’m trying to do some good it hurts so I just stand up for myself and challenge when I have to.

I’m learning fast and am putting up a good fight to the opposition. About 4-6 weeks ago I was appointed some sort of business help from my Council. Have gone through the lip service and know there is nothing down for me really. But let’s go for it. The council official lets say trying to work with only works part time, 3 hours a week. How am I or anybody else supposed to work with in my experience with an answer machine, emails around working hours, support, advice and so on. And her holidays. I end up going down there and speak to her boss and caught him out straight away. I took a McKenzie witness with me. The guy was wounded but it didn’t stop him from trying it on.

I’ve come at a bad time, everyone is on holiday and unfortunately blah blah blah. Then starts telling me about hard done by he is and has only had 7 days holiday this year. I jumped up and said to him “do I look like a f*****g agony aunt to you?”. The witness started laughing, he didn’t know what to say.

What I can’t get my head around now is what is this 3 hour a week person who spends more time on holiday than at work is bringing to the citizens of the city? The cost to my life is more than what they can contemplate or are prepared to consider. Their proven lazy attitude towards everything I’ve tried is relentlessly a daily battle. But if this is how they are treating the whole of this community it seriously needs questioning. The consequences to this which I have pointed out to the Job Centre, probation, charity and not the council yet because I’m doing that through the Social Value Portal.

Here is the consequences of their actions. Crime, offending and reoffending. Substance misuse. Drugs misuse. Domestic violence. Further unemployment. Homelessness. Divorce. Suicide. These are some of the battles people are forced into or even choose as the way out. I don’t know what the numbers are involved, it happens. Is this how cheap some of us are and is it right for it to be normal practice because I’m proving it. Help!

Two Futures of Work

By Tom Lloyd
Visiting Fellow to Northampton Business School

Two contemporaneous, but very different arguments about the future of work are struggling for ascendancy.

The first is the ‘opportunity’ argument, which sees new technology as offering not only greater efficiency, but also much more choice in the way we work, and how much, and how long we work. It loosens the bonds that have hitherto tied us to organisations, workplaces, fixed hours, and careers devoted to climbing hierarchies. It makes labour markets more efficient, and purges them of prejudices that have reserved almost all of the power in organisations and most of the wealth they create for white males.

The ‘opportunity’ argument foresees re-configurations of work, and re-assignments of roles and responsibilities that will reduce the sacrifices, in terms of work-life balance, that people have had to make until now for fulfilling careers.

The other less optimistic, but, allegedly, more realistic argument about the future of work is the ‘threat’ argument. We’re living in a fool’s paradise, according to this view, if we think we can take our noses from the grindstone and re-arrange work patterns in ways that suit us more, and suit organisations less. At a time when Far Eastern people, in particular, are out-working and out-studying us and so poised to ‘eat our lunch’, as New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman, puts it, we simply can’t afford to burden ourselves with such self-indulgent notions.

As Amy Chua warned us, in her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Penguin, 2011) the economic future belongs to the industrious and diligent. If our children don’t study until midnight, and we don’t work till we drop, we’re going to lose the world economic war, and our living standards will plummet.

According to this view, seeking a ‘better’ balance than the market produces between assignments of power and influence, and work and home life is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The modern world is intensely competitive. The only societies than can be expected to prosper are those with a strong work ethic.

So which argument is right? Time will tell, but my money is on the ‘opportunity’ argument, for two reasons.

First, the new work patterns that are emerging as people choose to work less, strike a different balance between work and home life, share jobs, retire early, or gradually (what Garrick Fraser, calls the ‘glide path’ http://executivealumni.com), will lead to better allocations of human resources, and make is easier for ability and talent to move to higher value uses.

Second, as the excellent Simon Kuper has pointed out (‘What are we working for?’, Financial Times, February 15/16, 2014), the current debate about the future of work in western economies is a sign of affluence, not of decadence. Working less and more flexibly is the reward for economic success, not a herald of economic failure. It is what economic growth is for. As Asians approach western living standards, they will choose to work less and more flexibly just as we have done.

We’re adaptable creatures. When we’re poor, we dedicate all of our energy, time and ability to escaping poverty. When we’ve succeeded we find we have more choice, and some of us choose to work less.


Find a short biography of Tom Lloyd's on the CCEG website HERE, along with his professional blog on business and management.

Visit our website at: www.cceg.org.uk

Email us at: info@cceg.org.uk 

[The views and opinions expressed in this blogs by guests or members of the CCEG are those of the author, and not of the CCEG or the University of Northampton Business School]


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Immigration is a Good Thing

By Tom Lloyd
Visiting Fellow to Northampton Business School


If people were beating a path to your company’s door it would be a cause for celebration. More sales, more profit, and a higher share price. What’s not to like?

When people beat a path to our country’s door, a growing number of Britons turn to those who promise to stem the inflow. They fear that immigrants will steal their jobs and, by adding to the burden of welfare, increase taxation.

But all academic studies of the economic impact of immigrants show we are much better off with immigrants, than without them. A 2010 Brookings Institution survey of the academic literature found that ‘immigrants raise the overall standard of living ..... by boosting wages and lowering prices.’

They enlarge the economy and by making some businesses viable that would probably have failed without them, they create new jobs, and increase employment opportunities for everyone.

It is generally accepted that high-skilled immigrants increase the rate of company formation and innovation. Studies have shown that immigrants are more likely than native-borns to obtain patents for product and process inventions. High-skilled immigrants also bring to their host economies valuable knowledge of foreign markets, and cultures.

Although it is not so widely accepted, low-skilled immigrants also strengthen the economy.
Because they are younger, and more mobile than native-born workers they improve the efficiency of the labour market, and the problems caused by labour immobility, such as lower economic growth and the UK’s serious regional economic imbalances.

And, far from adding to it, immigrants actually ease the so-called ‘welfare burden’ in two ways.
First, because they are relatively young they impose no additional age-related welfare costs, and so help to defuse the ‘demographic time-bomb’ associated with the withdrawal of the baby-boomers from the workforce. Without tax-paying immigrants, the British pensions burden would soon become economically intolerable.
Second, because the marginal, per capita cost of welfare falls, as the population expands.

In other words, relatively young immigrants are likely to increase tax revenues more than they increase welfare costs. They have been shown by study, after study to deliver substantial net benefits to our economy.
It is, therefore, to be deeply regretted that demands for controls and ‘caps’ on immigration are likely to play a key role in shaping Britain’s political landscape over the next few years. All parties are committed, in one way or another, to respond positively to the apparent compulsion of a minority of members of native-born ethnic groups to harm themselves economically.

I’m not so naïve as to suppose there’s anything rational about the anti-immigration political groundswell. But it is one of the great tragedies of our age that the emotional responses of many native-born Britons to immigration do not include pride in the fact that people from other countries are attracted by the British qualities of stability, tolerance and liberalism, and the British principles of fair play and equality before the law.

The problems caused by tensions between ethnic groups are commonly attributed to immigration, but have little directly to do with the new immigration that ‘caps’ are designed to control. Instead of pandering to, and seeking votes from, irrational fears about rates of immigration, politicians would serve their constituents better if they lauded the economic benefits of immigration, and suggested that new immigrants enrich and add ‘hybrid vigour’ to our culture.

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[The views and opinions expressed in this blogs by guests or members of the CCEG are those of the author, and not of the CCEG or the University of Northampton Business School]


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Chancellor's Autumn Statement: Why should 65 be sacrosanct as a retirement age?

by Julie Perigo
Member of the People Matters group of the CCEG, and Chair of The Henley Partnership


The issue of retirement and pensions, which has recently surged back on to the agenda, is not just about changing government financial support structures. It needs to be about changing mindsets within organisational employers and within individuals themselves as well.

I find it quite bizarre that the age of 65 seems to have been set in stone in the public imagination, and by the media when it is a purely arbitrary number.  As I highlight in my book, “Winners in the second Half” (Wiley 2008) Bismarck introduced it as the age for the Old Age Pension in Prussia back in the 1880s , allegedly basing it on the question, “By which age are most of them dead?”.  It meant that approximately only 2% of the population were alive to take advantage of it and because, of the health conditions at the time, were generally assumed to be disabled and therefore incapable of work. Others countries took it up as a norm as they introduced State benefits.

Lifespan and health remained fairly static until after the Second World War, so there was little cause to review pensionable age. Thereafter, growing prosperity in the Western world did lead to greater longevity and better health…. But the prosperity, economic growth and higher birth which increased the amount of contributing producers meant that supporting pensions for 65+s looked sustainable although, even then, recognised as generous.

In the 21st century, however, there is no reason not to question the pensionable age. Given the immense changes in our health, longevity and even type of work we do, it should be up for grabs. And it may possibly need to change again in 20 years time.  Concurrently, we need to facilitate greater national debate on what the Pension should be and whether there are other options to incentivise personal saving to support oneself in retirement, as in other countries such as Australia and NZ.

The fact that changes to the Pension still raise such knee-jerk opposition illustrates  just  how much misunderstanding there is about later-career issues, and how much personal and organisational change still needs to take place in our society. 


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[The views and opinions expressed in this blogs by guests or members of the CCEG are those of the author, and not of the CCEG or the University of Northampton Business School]

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